On Friday, April 20, 1945, Adolf Hitler celebrated his 56th birthday in the bunker beneath the gardens of the Reich Chancellery, where he had been living permanently since March 30. Physically, he was a wreck, ravaged by Parkinson's disease. Yet his determination remained intact. How should we interpret the fact that he continued to play the role of war leader by moving divisions that were no more than battalions? Had he lost touch with reality, or was he playing a role to shape his image as a fighter for posterity?
No rational mind, in any case, could entertain any doubt about the outcome. The last hopes of containing the enemy coalition vanished in the west on March 22, when the Third United States Army crossed the Rhine, and in the east on March 27, with the Ninth Army's last attempt to dislodge the Red Army from its bridgehead on the Oder. As Western armies spread out to the Elbe without organized resistance, on that same April 20, the first Soviet tanks were reported in the eastern suburbs of the German capital. For the 389th and last time since 1939, the sirens wailed to announce the final bombardment by British and American four-engine bombers.
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